Up & Coming Ben Thatcher Royal Blood’s percussive half avoids excess at all costs—and the payoff has been handsome indeed. Who said the blues is dead? British power-rock duo Royal Blood has earned success on both sides of the Atlantic with its blues-drenched thunder grooves, with a bass-and-drums attack so mercilessly heavy that rock god Jimmy Page told the British magazine NME, “Absolutely riveting. They play with the spirit of the things that have preceded them, but you can hear they’re going to take rock into a new realm—if they’re not already doing that. It’s music of tremendous quality.” Comprising bassist/singer Mike Kerr and twenty-seven-year-old drummer Ben Thatcher—that’s right, no guitar—Royal Blood performs with a deadly lead-footed interplay that draws on Led Zeppelin as often as Queens of the Stone Age. On the band’s self-titled debut album, head-bashers like opening track “Out of the Black,” bluesy monsters “Come on Over” […]